Challenge

What do you do when your traditional pool of talent is shrinking?

The traditional talent pool for the armed forces, young white males with a military history in the family, is shrinking. Now, only 15% of the country would even consider a job in the armed forces, and for female and BAME audiences the percentage is microscopic. And that’s a big problem for the Royal Air Force, as one of the world’s most effective educators. We often say it’s the most advanced technical college in the world. 

They can can teach you Arabic from scratch in 18 months with no previous language skills and their technical training is second to none. But without the raw material their skills at realising potential goes to waste and they are unable to keep the skies safe.

Having overfished in a shrinking talent pool, we needed to grow that pool larger and show how the RAF is a career choice regardless of ethnicity or gender.

Solution

To build this pool we needed a smart data-driven solution. Interrogating data to understand why some candidates progress and others drop out of the process, and building a live data model to optimise creative and learn from the language this new target audience use to make creative most relevant to them.

Effortless diversity.

While diversity is a cultural tick box for many brands, for the RAF, it’s a strategic imperative and our strategy has been to show how the RAF can help you FIND YOUR FORCE, whoever you are.

By consistently and effortlessly highlighting diversity, we have combined a new image of the RAF with its ability to unlock potential in young people. We’ve pushed back on damaging stereotypes and showcased the world of possibility the RAF offer.

True 360.

Managing the full spectrum of the RAF’s entire communications journey, we combine large-scale TV advertising with targeted digital comms, use earned media alongside data- optimised content, to get the right recruits for the right roles.